Part 35 (1/2)
”I forgot to make you take off your spurs. Remove them while I go and pay the inn-keeper. Wait for me outside at the cross road.”
”Uncle, may I put into my wallet a few little presents that I bring from Italy for the family?”
”Do about that as you please,” answered the Franc-Taupin.
While Odelin walked into the stable to remove his spurs and take out of his valise the articles which he wished to take with him, Josephin went to settle his score with the inn-keeper. The latter, who hugged his taproom, did not see young Odelin come down in his Capuchin vestments.
To the Franc-Taupin he said: ”You leave us early, my reverend. I hoped you would pay us a longer visit. But I can understand that you are in a hurry to reach Paris to witness the great ceremony.”
”What ceremony have you in mind, my good man?”
”A traveler informed us that the bells and the chimes have been ringing in Paris with might and main since morning. All the houses along the road that the superb procession is to traverse were decorated with tapestry by orders of the Criminal Lieutenant, who also ordered that a lighted wax candle be held at every window. He also told us that the King, the Queen and all the Princes, as well as a crowd of great seigneurs and high dignitaries were to a.s.sist at the ceremony--the most magnificent that will yet have been seen--”
”Good evening, my host,” said Josephin, anxious to put an end to the conversation and join his nephew who waited for him outside. To himself he was saying:
”What can the ceremony be that the inn-keeper has been informed about?
After all, the event can only be favorable to us. The crowds that the streets will be filled with will facilitate our pa.s.sage, and help us to reach unperceived the retreat designated by Monsieur Estienne.”
The Franc-Taupin and his nephew walked rapidly towards Paris where they arrived as the sun was dipping the western horizon.
CHAPTER XX.
JANUARY 21, 1535.
January 21, 1535! Alas, that date must remain inscribed in characters of blood in our plebeian annals, O, sons of Joel! If there is justice on earth or in heaven--and I, Christian Lebrenn, who trace these lines, believe in an avenging, an expiatory justice--some day, on that distant day predicted by Victoria the Great, the 21st of January may be also a day fatal to the race of crowned executioners, the princes, the n.o.bles, and the infamous Romish priests.
You are about to contemplate, O, sons of Joel--you are about to contemplate the pious work of that King Francis I, that chivalrous King, that Very Christian King, as the court popinjays love to style him. A chivalrous King--he is false to his troth! A knightly King--he sells under the auctioneer's hammer the seats on the courts of justice and in the tribunals of religion! A very Christian King--he wallows in the filthiest of debauches! In order to impart a flavor of incest to adultery, he shares with one of his own sons, the husband of Catherine De Medici, the bed of the d.u.c.h.ess of Etampes. Finally, he expires tainted with a loathsome disease after ten years of frightful sufferings! At this season, however, the miscreant is still in full health, and is engaged in honoring G.o.d, his saints and his Church with a human holocaust. Hypocrisy and ferocity!
A magnificent solemnity was that day to be the object of edification to all the good Catholics of Paris, as the inn-keeper announced to the Franc-Taupin. Read, O sons of Joel, the ordinance posted in Paris by order of the Very Christian King Francis I:
On Thursday the 21st day of January, 1535, a solemn procession will take place in the honor of G.o.d our Creater, of the glorious Virgin Mary, and of all the blessed Saints in Paradise. Our Seigneur, King Francis I, has been informed of the errors that are rife in these days, and of the placards and heretical books that are posted or scattered around the streets and thoroughfares of Paris by the vicious sectarians of Luther, and other blasphemers of the sacred Sacrament of the altar, the which accursed sc.u.m of society aims at the destruction of our Catholic faith and of the const.i.tutions of our mother, the Holy Church of G.o.d.
Therefore, our said Seigneur Francis I has held a Council, and, in order to repair the injury done to G.o.d, has decided to order a general procession, the same to close with the torture and execution of several heretics. At the head of the procession shall be carried the sacred Eucharist and the most precious relics of the city of Paris.
First, on the 17th day of the said month of January, proclamation shall be made to the sound of trumpets, throughout the thoroughfares of Paris, ordering that the streets through which the said procession is to pa.s.s shall be swept clean, and all the houses ornamented with beautiful tapestry. The owners of the said houses shall stand before their doors, bare-headed and holding a lighted taper in their hands.--_Item_, on the Wednesday following, the 20th of the said month, the princ.i.p.als of all the Universities of Paris shall meet and orders shall be issued to them to cause the students of the said Colleges to be locked up, with the express injunction that the same shall not be allowed outside until the procession shall have pa.s.sed, in order to obviate confusion and tumult.
Furthermore the students shall fast on the eve and the day of the procession.--_Item_, provosts of the merchant guilds and the aldermen of the city of Paris shall cause barriers to be raised at the crossing of the streets through which the said procession is to pa.s.s, in order to prevent the people from crossing the lines of the marchers. Two soldiers and two archers shall be placed in charge of each one of the said barriers.--_Item._ halting places shall be erected in the middle of St. Denis and St. Honore Streets, at the Cross-of-Trahoir, and at the further end of the Notre Dame Bridge, the latter of which shall be decorated with a gilded lanthorn, historical paintings of the holy Sacrament, and a dais of evergreen from which shall hang a number of crowns, and bannerets bearing the following sacred device: IPSI PERIBUNT, TU AUTEM PERMANEBIS (_They shall perish, but you, Holy Mother Church, shall remain forever_).
The same device shall be inscribed on the cards attached to the swarm of little birds that are to be set free along the pa.s.sage of the said procession.[39]
The program of the ceremony was followed out point by point. The Franc-Taupin and Odelin entered Paris by the Gate of the Bastille of St.
Antoine. They were wrapped in their Capuchin hoods, and took the route of St. Honore Street. That thoroughfare was lighted by the tapers which, obedient to the royal decree, the householders held at the doors of their dwellings. Lavish tapestries, hangings and rich cloths ornamented with greens carpeted the walls of the houses from top to bottom. Men, women and children crowded the windows. A lively stream of people moved about gaily, loudly admiring the splendors of the feast. Arrived near the Arcade of Eschappes, which ran into St. Honore Street, the Franc-Taupin and Odelin were forced to halt until the procession had pa.s.sed before they could cross the street. All the crossings were closed with barriers and guarded by soldiers and archers.
Thanks to the respect that their monastic garb inspired, Josephin and his nephew were allowed to clear the barrier which separated them from the first ranks of the procession, and finally to fall in line with the same.
Romish idolatry and royal pride exhibited themselves in the midst of the pomp and circ.u.mstance of the occasion. King, Queen, Princes, Princesses, Cardinals, Archbishops, Marshals, courtiers, ladies in waiting, high dignitaries of the courts of justice, magistrates, consuls, bourgeois, guilds of artisans--all were about to batten upon the torture and death of the heretics, whose only crime consisted in the practice of the Evangelical doctrine in its pristine purity.
Read, O, sons of Joel, the narrative of this execrable ceremony, transmitted by a spectator, an ardent Catholic and fervent royalist, Dom Felibien. Preserve the pages in our family annals, they are the irrefutable witnesses of the religious fanaticism of those days of ignorance, under clerical domination and monarchic despotism. Dom Felibien says: